Storytelling Bites 15: Storification.
‘Just share the narrative,’ we are constantly advised. ‘No! What you’re doing is a massive data dump. Try telling them the story...’
Well, yes, that would obviously be hugely beneficial if only we knew how it could be done. What are the key ingredients that make up a story? What should our content be?
Here at theWholeStory we believe that everything that either has happened, is happening or will happen is a story, and therefore is best communicated and shared in that format.
Our brains have developed to use narrative to make sense of the world around us. Anything from the experiences a friend shares, the imagined reason why a colleague didn’t return a friendly nod, even incomplete snippets of information we glean, are shaped into the story that makes most sense to us.
So, if that’s how we think, we should harness this in the way we communicate. We want to try and ensure that our audience isn’t creating their own, possibly different, narrative whilst listening to us, which may well lead them to conclusions that aren’t the ones we intended them to have.
The simple answer is to include four key ingredients: Character, Action, Time and Setting. Have people doing stuff, or having stuff done to or for them, in time and space. This will make your information relatable, ensure that you are talking about things in a tangible way, give your audience an idea of the timescale and grounds what you’re talking about in reality. These four ingredients can all be described visually, allowing your audience to imagine themselves into the reality of what you are discussing, rather than hearing it as an abstract concept.
Characters can include individuals as well as groups of all sizes from your team to your client base; actions are not just the stuff that is getting done, but the reasoning behind it and the affect, both practical and emotional, it’ll have on the characters. Time covers key dates, the length of the story, how fast or slowly anything is happening, even atmosphere in the moment, and finally setting looks at both where anything is taking place and the geographical reach it has.
Certain topics, and indeed certain audiences, will require you to lean more heavily on one or other of these pillars. You will need all four to be present within your story but sometimes you gain from focusing more heavily on one area than another. For example, it may be important for your exec report to emphasise the pace at which a change will be happening, but possibly to your team how the actions within the change will impact them as the characters involved in making it happen.
Our workshops help you identify the most appropriate and helpful ingredients with which to create the right story that will connect and resonate strongly with a specific audience so that they understand your message and want to be a part of whatever you suggest is coming next.
